A variety of hand tools have been developed including hand tools having folding implements. For example, hand held knives include knives having folding blade designs. By including folding implements, such as a folding pocket knife, a hand tool can include one or more implements in a relatively compact package. Moreover, the capability of folding an implement at least partially into the handle may increase the safety of these hand tools since the implements need not extend from the handle in instances in which the hand tool is not in use. For example, a knife having a folding blade design can be disposed in a folded configuration when not in use such that the cutting edge of the knife blade is safely disposed within the handle and will not be a safety hazard.
Hand tools generally include a handle assembly having opposed handles that are spaced from one another to define an internal cavity. The internal cavity is, in turn, sized such that the folding implement(s) can be received within the internal cavity when in the folded configuration. A hand tool can also include liners disposed upon the inwardly facing surfaces of the handles to further define the internal cavity of the hand tool and to facilitate movement of the folding implement(s) into and out of the internal cavity. As such, the liners are generally formed of material, such as steel or titanium, that provides substantial strength and structural rigidity for the hand tool, while the handles provide more aesthetic features. As such, the handles may be formed of a wide variety of materials including various metals or combinations of metals and plastics.
The handle of a folding hand tool must provide substantial strength to the hand tool and its various implements. As such, many handles have been formed at least partially of metal and have cooperated with the metal liners in order to provide the requisite strength. In this regard, for a folding hand tool including a knife blade that is rotatably connected to one end of the handle, at least the portion of the handle to which the knife blade is rotatably connected is typically formed of metal. As such, even in instances in which the handles of a folding hand tool have been partially formed of a composite material, the composite material has been primarily provided for aesthetic purposes with the metal liners and the metal portions of the handle providing the majority of the strength for the folding hand tool.
As folding hand tools are generally carried by a person and, in many instances, are desirably carried in a pocket, it would be advantageous for a folding hand tool to be relatively lightweight and to be relatively thin. However, the metal liners and the metallic portions of the handles that are required to provide the requisite strength for a folding hand tool cause both the weight and the thickness of the hand tool to disadvantageously increase.
In addition to a knife blade, the folding hand tool can include one or more other implements including a bit driver, a saw blade, a bottle opener, a carabiner or the like. With respect to a bit driver, a bit driver is advantageously designed to receive a variety of different bits in order to increase the functionality of the hand tool. To facilitate the ease of operation by the user, it would be desirable for the extra bits, that is, the bits not presently engaged by the bit driver, to be stored and carried by the hand tool so as to be readily available to the user and to avoid loss of bits. As noted above, however, it is desirable for the hand tool to have a compact form such that the storage of the extra bits by the hand tool would desirably not increase the overall size of the hand tool or restrict the capability of the hand tool to assume a compact form.